Cities: Boom Town

Peachtree Street was never before like this.
Handsome stone-and-glass office and apartment buildings are sprouting
all over Atlanta. In the past two years workmen put the finishing
touches on such major new downtown structures as a 22-story, $12
million Atlanta Merchandise Mart, and a 31-story headquarters for the
Bank of Georgia, loftiest skyscraper in the Southeast. This year city
officials expect to issue around $120 million worth of new building
permits. From 1950 to 1960 metropolitan Atlanta's population jumped 40%
to 1,017,188 and is still growing at the rate of 30,000 a...